February 25, 2014

Koigu, part three

Really I meant to blog more often this year. Little did I know that February would bring me a virus, jet lag, then another virus. At least I found myself with lots of down time suitable for knitting, while my body and spirits were too limp to face much else. The fog of the Great Virus of Winter, 2014 hasn't completely dissipated yet, but I have a basketful of knitting topics to share, so here goes -- pass the kleenex and the hot tea, please.

I'll start with Koigu since this is where I last left you, my friends. I had been wanting to combine 2 Koigu colorways in a chevron scarf for a while, and I finally cast on for that project at some point in December. My inspiration was this clever pattern , which put me in mind of Missoni knitwear, but the pattern I actually followed was this freebie. I added 3 garter stitches on each side for a neater edge, and I alternated colorways every two rows.

After producing many scarves that proved to be way too long, I have finally learned that this length, 64", works well for my purposes; the resulting scarf keeps my throat warm without peeking from under my coat or puffy winter jacket.

Here's a close-up of the pattern; the light did not cooperate on this photo, but at least one can see that both colorways, the dark olive as well as the red, are equally variegated. It took me a while to find two colorways that would complement each other, as I wanted the chevron design to really show consistently.

I don't trust randomness 100% and I was mindful of some principles of working with colors that I learned from Laura Bryant in the past. Both colorways are approximately the same "weight" and play well together. The scarf used up about one and a half skein of each colorway and took no time at all to knit or to block. All in all I am quite happy with my little Missoni knock-off.